ACA Study in Europe seminars in May: Brazil and Russia

On 3-5 May ACA delivered the second Study in Europe (SiE) seminar in Brazil, kindly hosted by one of the European Higher Education Experts (EHEEs) in Brazil, Prof Cristina Russi, Director of the International Cooperation Office at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).

The 16 participants at the seminar discussed the state of play in Brazilian higher education, presented their past activities in the project and future plans for Study in Europe events. It was an excellent opportunity to share experiences in the project, discuss different approaches and successful practices, as well as future considerations, especially in light of the announced More Science, More Development programme, the successor of Science without Borders. During the seminar, the participants also had the opportunity to meet the university rector, pay a visit the UERJ Maracanã campus and learn about a wide range of community-centred projects in which UERJ colleagues are involved.

The SiE seminar in Rio was preceded by two Study in Europe events, one organised by the UERJ colleagues and the second one by CEFET/RJ, represented in the SiE network by Prof Angela Norte, Head of International Office. The ACA team had the opportunity to take part in both sessions on behalf of the project consortium, and on this occasion, Marija Mitic presented the Study in Europe portal and Facebookpage, the two relevant sources of information on studying in Europe at large.

Each event gathered more than 100 students, both were engaging and raised a lot of interest among the audience. Apart from ACA, the speakers at the event were representatives of European promotion agencies and EURAXESS.

We are extremely grateful to Prof Russi and her team, who provided great support and excellent organisation despite the volatile political situation and months-long financial constraints at the university. Many thanks also go to Prof Angela Norte of CEFET/RJ for logistical support during the seminar.

The European Higher Education Experts and partners in Brazil are as follows:

The month of May ended with another successful Study in Europe seminar, this time in Moscow, Russia on 28-29 May. Hosted kindly by the EU Delegation in Moscow and gathering Russian EHEEs and the Director of the National Erasmus+ Office in Russia, Dr Olga Oleynikova, the seminar successfully fulfilled its goal to provide a venue for exchange, discussion on EU-Russia cooperation and to set the stage for future joint activities in and with the EHEE network.

The Russian network of European Higher Education Experts has been a very good example of high-level engagement and competence in the Study in Europe project, so one of the goals of the seminar was to share this success within the group, exchange good practice and inspire each other. Therefore, a significant part of the seminar programme was dedicated to the presentations by Russian EHEEs whereby they described their own activities in the project, shared accomplishments as well as challenges and lessons learned, all of which paved the way to valuable insights in the group and ideas on how to further advance their engagement in the project.

We were happy to learnthat this project encouraged many EHEEs to expand international activities and advance collaboration at and beyond their institutions.

List of Russian experts and partners

Inna Ponomareva and Olga Valueva, Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography (MIIGAiK)

Yana Zherebtsova, Russian State Humanitarian University (Moscow)

Irina Maevskaya, Don State Technical University (Rostov-on-Don)

Tatiana Shevchenko, Saint-Petersburg State University of Economics (UNECON)

Natalia Ushkova, Voronezh State University (VSU)

Olga Novokreshchenova and Natalia Vatolkina, National Research Mordovia State University (Saransk)

Veronika Denisova, Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University

Liliya Prikhodko and Olga Fedotkina, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation (Moscow)

The fifth Study in Europe event, in China, is planned for the second part of 2017 in cooperation with the EU Delegation in Beijing. In the meantime, ACA will work on the development of webinars for the EHEE networks and further support in their work on the project.